Monday, November 23 12:20 pm PT: “I had a lot of fear and trepidation after my last fight…I couldn’t believe I got knocked out so easily.” Forrest Griffin, speaking to BSNOnline following his Saturday victory over a fresh-out-of-the-ICU Tito Ortiz.
“He had me convinced he was coming in at 100 percent, that he was super-healthy,” he said. “You need to protect your ego. He does a good job of that.”
Being interviewed by your own sponsor isn’t exactly an interrogation on the level of “60 Minutes,” but it’s still worth a watch, particularly since Griffin doesn’t need a lot of prodding to be candid. But if you’re tight on time: the Chumbawamba entrance music was his wife’s idea.
Cage Fighting Championships middleweight kingpin Hector Lombard struck UFC veteran Kalib Starnes into verbal submission in the first round of their CFC 11 main event on Friday at Big Top Stadium in Sydney, Australia.
Unbeaten in 16 fights, Lombard, who also holds the Bellator Fighting Championships middleweight crown, has posted 11 consecutive victories. Based at American Top Team, the 31-year-old Cuban judoka grounded Starnes early in their encounter and dropped punches and elbows until “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 3 semi-finalist asked the referee to intervene.
Monday, November 23 5:10 am PT: If you believe Tito Ortiz’s post-fight confessional Saturday, it has become virtually impossible to defeat him without Ortiz starting the job himself. Cracked orbital, dislodged vertebrae, a washout training camp: one half-expected to see him wheeled out to the post-fight press conference in an iron lung.
In addition to obliterating his credibility, Ortiz’s admissions may have left some fans feeling downright defrauded: his main event with Forrest Griffin hinged on his claim that his back -- surgically repaired after years of problems -- was no longer an issue and he was in fine fighting form. (It was, it still is, and he was not.)
